2022/06/06 English

I keep on reading Hiromi Shimada's "Aum" and think about the group Aum. Who was the guru Shoko Asahara, the leader of Aum? According to the book "Aum", Shoko Asahara had various faces actually. Sometimes he showed the face of a leader, who had a certain tyrannicalness or fatherhood. And at other situations, he showed his weakness or tenderness. He always might 'act' to be a leader? Changing his persona who was dependent on others to cheat them. And he even might cheat himself...

Indeed, Shoko Asahara was just a snob person and had a material desire, and that's all. He might say that he was beyond this material world, but he sank into that desire... therefore he never was mysterious. I remember Nietzsche's quote "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you". Asahara must have a notorious charm in his character (therefore that readymade dogma attracted many people), so I have to be careful.

If I read Aum's dogma literally, I have to accept the fact that people might kill others for "salvaging" This fact is really scary. This is the same as supporting eugenic thought for salvaging others. This might come from a "mind control"? I can't kill others. I don't know why. But if I touched another's body and felt that it was warm, and also beat actually then I hesitate to kill them. This is just a problem of my instinct. Then, this shows that Aum had rewritten that instinct of their disciples completely.

I sometimes think that I might join Aum if I was in the wrong situation. Me, I once join the ultraleft group and almost lost my sanity. And I also got into Yoshinori Kobayashi's "Gohmanism declaration", Osamu Hashimoto, and Shinji Miyadai. I was the person who let myself into various charismatic people. But finally, I felt something wrong if I let myself into someone's opinions. Yes, that can happen. I have to live 'my' life. Today I listen to Kenji Ozawa again and think about various things.